Reality Is Relative

Defining Reality

Everyone perceives reality in a different light. Reality is a result of the upbringing and surroundings of an individual and, as a person matures, they are exposed to more ideas, thoughts, and events. The actions and events that a person is exposed to are communicated through language, which defines reality by allowing people to become receptive to different ideas. While language can expand ones reality, language also places limits on that reality. Society, geography and language simultaneously expand and limit an individual's reality.

Our Surroundings and Reality

Our surroundings affect reality, and therefore reality is constantly redefined as the world changes. An individual's perception of reality will never stay the same from one moment to another, because everything a person reads, hears, or sees changes his or her perception. Freire expands on the concept of a constantly changing reality; people are "unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality." The interpretation of reality for a given person is constantly changing, and is related to what a person has been exposed to.

Language and Reality

Language can change what we perceive as reality.

As a person becomes educated they are exposed to more ideas or "a constant unveiling of reality."

In turn, these ideas shape the individuals perception of what surrounds them and "strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality. "

Limiting A Persons Reality

Language is powerful enough to put boundaries on the reality of a person.

Language can control how people think and act, Antonio Strati remarks in his essay that "Language is used to exert control," it also "calls to action, mobilizes and directs."

Language and literacy can be used to govern or rule an entire population. By limiting the exposure of people to certain ideas, ...

The Social Construction Of Reality

To start, we need to first try and understand the main principles and issues of human nature. How does an individual define what is real?

Well, one defines what is real through one's perception of the world, and one's perception of the world, is based on learned interpretations. This learning is social: we learn from and among persons in social interaction.

The Social Construction of Reality (Part 2)

Last time we said that varying individual characteristics, represent different perceptions of reality. Let's look at how and why this happens.

Our varying individual characteristics ( for example, weight, education, race, etc.) represent the different means by which each individual can perceive reality. This reality is defined through the category of each variation, which an individual falls into.

For example, a black, middle class, heterosexual women has a certain set of perceptions by which she defines her reality. Her perceptions, are ...

The Social Construction of Reality (Part 3)

Now let's look closer at how an individual's sexual orientation and race further illustrate the means by which the reality of the individual is defined.

Sexual orientation is defined by a certain perpetuation of convention. The assumption that heterosexuality is a product of an innate or inborn sex drive, was, for a long time, accepted as reality, as a scientific truth. But as a direct result of the development of the field of sociology, the sexual orientation of an individual is no longer considered natural, nor are the conventions of sexuality related to an empirical truth.

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